The L.A. Times music blog

Premiere: Open Mike Eagle's 'Extended Nightmares Getdown' EP

November 30, 2011 | 3:02
pm

Pop and Hiss has made little secret of its appreciation of Open Mike Eagle's music. Over the last 18 months, the Los Angeles-based Project Blowedian has carved out a singular niche. He's analytical, sardonic, political, and he manages not to take himself seriously despite taking everything seriously. Plus, he can sing.

His latest EP, "Extended Nightmares Getdown: The Dark Blue Door," (presented by Open Enrollment Tour) finds him delving deeper into his interior psyche and memories. There are comic meditations based on Kurt Vonnegut novels, childhood dreams of patent leather Jordans, and images of drinking Blue Moon out of salt shakers. "Four Days" finds him and fellow Chicago transplant Serengeti spinning completely different stories of bathroom fiascoes at friends' homes -- narrative detail and humor worthy of S.J. Perelman. There are beats from underground rap heroes Busdriver and Blockhead and a song called "Wolfmother Wallpaper" that somehow is not about the mediocre Australian rock band.

Eagle has also written a note about the record, which you can read below -- where a download link to the free EP also awaits.

The entire record is a treatise on perception and black male identity.

Hopefully I wont have to answer that question in interviews anymore.

The above sentence is the single most pretentious thing I've ever written that I actually meant.

The sentence above this one proves that within five sentences I can go completely off-topic.

The album moves in the same sort of manner. The title track sticks to the thesis in a straightforward manner (twice.) but in exploring the topic I end up touching on everything from Weezer, to NBC's "Community," to the order in which I select dishes to wash.*

*silverware, cups, bowls, plates, pots/pans for those keeping score.

I have so much to say on the subject that I've chosen to expand some of the material into a series of standalone EPs. Four to be exact. Each one anchored by a remix of the song on the album that inspired it.

The first in the series is the "Extended Nightmares Getdown: The Dark Blue Door"

1. Nightmares (Busdriver Remix)

2. Billy's Quagmire (prod. Blockhead)

3. Four Days feat. Serengeti (prod. Busdriver)

4. The Secret to Negro Alchemy (prod. N/A)

5. Experimental Dream FLCL (prod. Awkward)

This EP can be obtained for zero american dollars for you and you only at the following link.

This first EP is a group of songs that were written by my shadow self. They all feel like the darkest part of happy. They are cotton candy monsters that smell like night-time. The prevailing themes are reminiscence, anime, and my grandmother's ghost.

You go ahead and get your thoughts together about it. Sit with it and let it haunt you a bit.